Renaming a Page (file)

[neckbone]

I changed the filename of a page that's been up for a while, it's got woesome rank, but ranks.

Before I upload it, I'd like to get opinions on the best way to make the transition.

Should I just change the filename, links, etc. and upload it or is there a better way to do this?

Thanks for your input

[Nick W]

>>Should I just change the filename, links, etc. and upload it or is there a better way to do this?

IMO, leave the filename as it is. Whereas it's undoubtably *a* factor, it's a pretty small one. Having spiders see it as a brand new page may set you back even further.

Optimize it, mess with it, whatever you like with it but personally i'd leave it alone in regards to the filename.

Others may disagree, and it'll be interesting to see why...

Nick

[rustybrick]

Nick, I am not sure who would disagree with you. One thing you normally do not want to change is the filename.

[Joseph Morin]

Wow Nick, yes I actually do agree with you.

Neckbone, yes there are actually a lot of on the page and off the page factors that can help you without risking the possibility if losing what you already have. Try increasing your keyword density for your target keyword phrases and get links to the pages in question with keywords in the inbound link text if possible.

[Marcia]

You can also try linking to another relevant page on the site with the keyword in the anchor text of the link.

[Jonas]

It might be worth the "reset" effect, if the current name is very non-descriptive with regards to content. If you have a page about Widget Thingy currently named product.htm, then renaming it to widget-thingy.htm is maybe worth more than the cost of name-change.

I don´t know this for a fact though, which aspect of these two file properties have the most impact. Maybe it´s on a case to case basis. Renaming a 2 week old file with a lousy name, should obviously be more rewarding than renaming a 2 year old file with a nearly-good name.

[Marcia]

Jonas, it can depend on the crawling and time it takes to to get indexed and rank how much of a hit the site can take. A page name doesn't get "changed" - technically it's a new page altogether, without PR. Who knows how long a new page will take to rank, get its Page Rank - and all the other elements involved with the links to it and from it. And how about how long it takes for new pages to be included in Yahoo?

If a page is already indexed, what it pays to do is leave well enough alone and not incur losses, which can be long term. I saw an established, successful site out there lose over 4 months at Google because of file name changes - totally unnecessary, they just didnt know how to properly do it.

I'd leave products.htm alone and just create an additional page with original content named cheap-widgets.htm - and link to it from products.htm That way instead of losing there's an opportunity to gain more ranking, maybe on a variation of phrasing. One page is heavy on text? Make the added page smaller and different. One has plurals - make the new one emphasize the singular - or a synonym for the main phrase.

[Jonas]

That's true Marcia, I agree with you. Didn't take in account the new page-part, that it won't be tracked as a changed file. Also when skimming the other threads on filenames it's clear that the common opinion is that it has very little or virtually no impact on ranking.

[Joseph Morin]

True - the algos haven't given as much weighting to keywords in the filenames as they once did in the past.

[neckbone]

I don't want to start a ruckus here but I don't agree with the general belief about the downhill slide after changing a filename.

I agree that the specific page will go downhill for a while. But with the new handle it'll get a lot of spider activity and bouce back because it's seen as new content. They'll (the spiders) come back a few times looking for the old filename. After a few crawls, they quit looking for the old handle so I assume it's been removed from their indexes.

My top traffic producing page (by far) is from a page that I changed the filename on about six months ago. This page with the new handle is pretty much the same content with the same main keyword target. Before I changed the filename, I wasn't getting much traffic from it. I also edited the page content before launching the page with the new handle.

I'm going to change the filename of this present project. I just wondered if anybody had any suggestions for a soft transition.

Now that I think about it, dropping it altogether as fast as possible is the best way. If it hasn't been doing very well, just dump it, edit the content, and bring it back with a new handle. Then, you're starting the page out fresh with no former reputation. It gets a fresh start.

Yeah, that's it. I just answered my own question.

[Jonas]

The issue here is clearly the value of "fresh start" - good thing or bad thing? Please share your results when they show, it´s a very interesting discussion!

[kenpomachine]

Try a 301 redirect in the .htaccess file if your host server is Apache.

[neckbone]

hi again,

I renamed the file, tweaked it a bit, uploaded it, along with a 301 redirect to the same file with the new handle, and then deleted the old file. Here. the .htaccess file I uploaded to the root:

redirect 301 /oldname.html http://www.yadablahha.com/newname.html

That's the first redirect I ever did.


I want to serve pages to old NN4. IE4, etc. browsers and use more modern methods to format pages for newer browsers.

I'm tired of using straight html and simple css but have kept doing so to support old browsers. I don't want to lose any visitors because of old browsers. I want to support as many as possible.

Is it feasible to keep files for newer browsers at the root and then put straight html files in a subdirectory and serve those to the old clunker browsers using a 301 redirect?

I appreciate you people helping me and offering your input. I'll keep you posted on what happens with that page I renamed.